Margaret Hill

University of Houston-Clear Lake, Houston, Texas, USA

A Discussion of Critical Balances: Early Instruction for Lifelong Reading

(Institute on Research-to-Practice Connections for Early Reading Instruction)

In response to the Governor's Reading Initiative in Texas, the University of Houston Institute entitled Critical Balances in Early Instruction for Lifelong Reading hosted a slate of five expert researchers from across the United States. Because much of the publicity for the Governor's Reading Initiative centered upon limited research from the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), reading experts in the Houston area, in Texas, and across the United States felt it was important to begin a dialogue that focused the public attention upon the complexity of beginning reading and the vast array of excellent research that was ignored by the governor's advisors. The five researchers (Richard Allington, Phillip Gough, Taffy Raphael, Constance Weaver, and P. David Pearson) presented research that they believed should heavily impact public policy. Although these researchers represent a diversity of research practice and viewpoints, their research does converge upon three important instructional elements of educational success: the teacher, the student, and the materials. The issues of literacy development are extremely complex. The panelists and speakers presented a tremendous amount of research to inform public policy. In order to translate this research into practical public information, the teacher, the student, and the materials were the three areas of convergence that I heard to be compelling forces to impact public policy.

The Teacher

Policy Implication: Long-term teacher development is one of the best investments that legislatures and schools can make.

All presenters agreed that staff development that is ongoing and systematic is probably the most important factor in building a successful literacy program. Afternoon panelist and language arts director for Houston Independent School District, Phyllis Hunter, spoke directly to the importance of continual staff development. Her comments were supported by all invited speakers suggesting that the teacher is the key. In addition and contrary to what many believe, phonics instruction is alive and well in the public schools across the United States. Teachers are teaching phonics as part of their reading programs.

Richard Allington's primary assertion was that it is the teacher who makes the difference. He cited Gerald Duffy's research on reading teacher competencies (Duffy, 1993; Duffy & McIntyre, 1980) and then supported that contention with the first-grade studies (1960s research studies sponsor by the U.S. Office of Education). From these studies of first-grade reading instruction, no conclusive reading program was best. An in-depth retrospective response to the first-grade studies will be in the fall issue of Reading Research Quarterly. From this research, Allington concluded that curriculum did not matter much; it was the teacher who did matter. He then said that almost any curriculum and materials could be successful in the right hands. When studies were compared where one teacher would do the exact intervention as another teacher, it was the teacher who made the difference not the program. A great instructional technique could work well with one teacher but poorly with another who was not as proficient, prepared, or experienced as the expert teacher.

Then Allington suggested that teachers are teaching phonics and have for the past 30 years. He introduced several researchers (McIntyre & Pressley, 1996; Pressley, Rankin, & Yokoi, 1995) who conducted studies indicating that phonics instruction is an important part of beginning reading instruction with most teachers. The McIntyre and Pressley study (1996) reported that teachers are directly teaching decoding, especially phonics. Baumann's recent survey (1996) concurs and reports that 95 percent of the teachers responding to his survey were directly teaching phonics. In Texas, Hoffman's survey (1995) indicated that even when new textbooks were adopted, and these were textbooks with more of a literature focus rather than a skills focus, teachers kept doing what they had always done. They did not change their instruction. They continued to use phonics instruction as part of their reading instruction. Allington concluded that the new textbook material had little impact upon either curriculum or instruction.

However, he warned that the difference is the way phonics knowledge is applied when learning to read. He emphasized that "there's a difference between effective, strategic use of phonics knowledge and pronouncing nonsense syllables" (Allington, 1997). Good teachers will teach phonics as a strategy rather than phonics as knowledge, while many inexperienced teachers might teach the phonics rules in isolation with undue repetition enabling students to learn to pronounce words, but without application to actual reading and writing practice in the context of a whole passage. The important thing is to be able to apply phonics strategically when it helps to recognize those words that are in a reader's listening vocabulary. Thus, the conclusion from these studies indicates that teachers are using phonics skills as part of their instruction for early reading. But the importance of this instruction lies in the transferability to real reading and writing.

Additional research presented by Allington stressed the importance of teacher training as the crucial element in school change, not more materials or frameworks. Drawing from the 1980s research of David Berliner (1988), Allington emphasized the time and training that it took to develop into an expert teacher. He suggested that those novice teachers may find themselves enslaved by materials and procedures so their instruction is often decontextualized and unsystematic.

Gough emphasized the importance of training teachers to learn to teach phonemic awareness strategies before they teach students decoding through phonics. Students must hear the sounds within words before phonics instruction makes sense. Gough suggested that systematic ongoing teacher training is vital. Many teachers do not understand the importance of phonemic awareness, which must proceed all instruction in phonics. No amount of direct instruction of phonics is meaningful to learners if they are not phonemically aware. Thus, teachers must spend time with youngsters who are not phonemically aware prior to intensive intervention of phonics instruction for reading and spelling. However, Gough also emphasized that some children come to school with high levels of phonemic awareness. These children are ready for direct instruction of phonics and do not need to proceed through phonemic awareness training first. That would be a waste of time for them, he warned. Thus, teachers must be able to differentiate between those students who have high levels of phonemic awareness and those who do not. That also takes training.

Raphael suggested that teachers must be prepared with a huge repertoire of instructional strategies. Citing the research from both Heath (1981; 1991) and Au (1995), Raphael indicated that because learners are so diverse both intellectually and culturally, teachers must understand cultural differences in order to apply the best strategies within the learning environment. In addition, according to the research of Gaskins, Anderson, Pressley, Cunicelli, and Satlow (1993) teachers must learn flexibility so that they can "think on the run" and make quick, yet appropriate decisions about instruction because there is a constant shifting of the balance of power within the classroom. It is very important for the teacher to empower the students to raise questions as well as to pose answers. And so the power shift from teacher to student is often appropriately transferred to the students as students and teachers work together and actively learn. In addition, she cites Janice Almasi's research (1995), which focuses on the teacher/student interactions and the dynamics for learning that ensue.

Weaver viewed the role of the teacher as one who builds scaffolding for the language learner. She emphasized that about 80 percent of the children in the United States learn to read with a minimal amount of reading instruction. Still, 20 percent do need more intensive, explicit instruction. To provide the instruction, the teacher needs to understand the child, but also to understand text differences as children shift from mainly narrative reading in the primary grades to exposition in the upper grades. To help make this transition, teachers must receive training not only in scaffolding techniques that support the reader, but also in information that will help the reader understand the text differences and their demands.

Pearson's summation applauded Hunter's recommendation for continued staff development. He emphasized that "our best hope is a substantial investment in teacher knowledge, professional development, and professional prerogative" (Pearson, 1997). Because there are no panaceas nor magical programs that can teach all children to read, teachers must be prepared for any and every situation. Pearson warned that often, because of economics, administrators plan for quick and cheap staff development. This has little or no impact and essentially is a waste of time and money. Because many teachers enter the workforce with little or no training, it is vital to plan on going, systematic staff development that will help build a professional teaching force. With severe cut-backs, many experienced reading teachers have been encouraged to retire. Staff development budgets have been severely cut. Pearson stressed that only in education is staff development given so little respect, and it is probably the best single investment that districts can make. He emphasized that "we have to demonstrate to policymakers and the public that teaching is sufficiently complex an undertaking to merit the professional status and training that it deserves, and therefore, the societal investment in its development that it requires" (Pearson, 1997). He then argued that we must dispel the notion that teachers are born or that teaching requires only knowledge of subject matter. Rather, teaching requires a unique set of knowledge based on knowledge of learner/teaching and subject matter as well as experience. It is the reflection on the convergence of experience, teaching/learning, and subject matter that is crucial for expert teaching. Because teaching outcomes directly impact learner outcomes, the investment in professional teacher training is imperative for improvement in instructional outcomes.

The Student

Policy Implication: Reading is a complex process requiring much practice to build fluency, automaticity, and competency.

The second area of comparison deals with the reader. Many of the presenters emphasized the amount of time that must be spent building fluency. Proficient reading takes many hours of practice. Thus, extensive reading is a prerequisite for becoming an excellent reader. In addition, prerequisites like phonemic awareness, learning within a print rich environment, learning to be an active reader, and learning when to apply what strategies were all delineated as important elements in the development of readers.

Extensive Reading

A major part of Allington's research has been studying the amount of time that students are allowed to practice reading in the classroom and the subsequent impact of time and practice upon reading and writing growth. Citing an article he wrote for the Journal of Reading (1977), he stressed the importance of the opportunity for reading and writing frequently. He quoted from a study by Knapp, Shields, and Turnbull (1995), which presented data showing the enormous amount of time that students in high-achieving, high-poverty schools spend reading, writing, talking, and listening instead of doing dittos and worksheets. Students need to read a lot, and they need to write a lot. Allington also added that kids in fourth grade often read twice the amount as junior high and high school students. Allington found this fact to be antithetical because the more strategic and skilled the reader, the less time he or she spent reading. Unfortunately, the teachers of junior high and high school students often do not believe that they need to provide students time to read in class. Because reading often does not get completed at home there is no reading practice done as a result.

Raphael, Gough, and Weaver all agreed that extensive reading must be done to improve in reading. In addition, Weaver and Raphael stressed that the reading must be contextualized, meaningful, and actively pursued.

The Model of the Skilled Reader

Both Gough and Weaver spent a considerable amount of time discussing what good readers do. Interestingly enough each of them attributed different traits to good readers. Gough believes that skilled readers do not make errors or miscues, whereas Weaver emphatically believes that good readers do make miscues. In fact, it is the type of error that differentiates a good reader from a poor one. Good readers will often miscue on the function words. They often read and change sentences to make them more meaningful. However, the poor reader will miscue with content words and read the function or familiar words more carefully than the good reader. Interestingly, both Gough and Weaver believe that phonemic awareness is a very important part of reading. Gough stated that skilled readers read very accurately and that they read every word. They are highly phonemically aware and this phonemic awareness leads to strong reading development and performance. On the other hand, Weaver believes that extensive reading leads to the development of phonemic awareness. Through reading, students will be able to develop a sense of phonemic awareness. To Weaver, phonemic awareness and reading are reciprocal and interdependent. Each needs the other to develop. Both researchers defended their viewpoint with research.

The Materials

Policy Implication: Students need to practice reading with a variety of text types that become increasingly more complex as the learner develops reading abilities.

Researchers representing a variety of viewpoints on reading do suggest that public policy supports a variety of texts to help children learn to read. Books offerings must include fiction and nonfiction, and narrative and expository styles, and they must be manageable to the reader. In addition, Allington stressed that the books and materials must also represent a high quality of literature.

Gough indicated that he did not care what children read as long as the children are phonemically aware. They can be introduced to any books and will learn from any book if they are initially phonemically aware. Predictable texts are useful but there is a danger in overreliance on the text, he warned. Content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs) in most passages are not predictable and so students need other strategies. Only the function words defined as connectors, prepositions, and articles are predictable. However, the problem with decodable texts is that they are unnatural and often difficult to read. Decodable texts are those that are written to represent only the phonics rules and regular patterns. Thus, the sense and flexibility of word choice is limited. He suggested that a natural text structure might be more advantageous for the beginning reader.

Panelist Michael Sampson agreed with this last statement. Predictable texts as indicated from his own research are far superior to decodable texts. However, when he compared students' own written text to decodable and predictable, he found the highest levels of comprehension and interest among readers to be with the student written books, followed by predictable and then decodable. He explained that decodable texts are very difficult to understand because they leave only one strategy for the reader (decoding by sound/symbol). When that fails, the reader has nothing to fall back upon.

Allington argued that some controls are necessary with books for beginning readers. However, he warned that the experts are not proficient at leveling books, and readability formulas are not sufficient for leveling books. From the 1970's and 1980's research, we know that beginning readers did not progress well when reading decodable texts; they needed more support. By contrast, texts that have been called predictable often presented too many words, too fast, and without enough support or repetition. Allington stressed the importance of repetition and reinforcement of new words so that students could learn by seeing and hearing the words many times.

Pearson commented that decodable texts are better than phonics workbooks and worksheets because at least words are in context. However, the real purpose of teaching reading is to engage children at all levels with big ideas so that reading from the beginning is thinking. Decodable books do not deal with big ideas. He also warned that decodable texts are easy to decode but difficult to understand because they require so much inferencing by the reader.

An example of a predictable passage is as follows:

I see the bee buzzing in Sam's ear.

The buzzing is a sound we hear.

But don't worry. It won't bite.

It's not with you he wants to fight.

Because of the sound, rhyme, and rhythm, the reader is drawn to predict through these couplets what might be the word at the end of each line, which would make sense and sound right. If there are pictures the prediction element is even stronger, then the reader could predict bee, ear, sound, bite, and fight.

A decodable passage, on the other hand, would focus on sound patterns and regular phonics rules. A particular focus is placed on three- and four-letter phonetically regular words:

The bee can buzz. Can you see the bee?

I see the bee. The bee is in the tree.

Do you think the bee can see me?

With this passage, there is an emphasis on the long (macron) sound of /e/ as a digraph (bee, see, tree) and also as an open vowel as in me. Predicting what might follow when there is no rhyme, rhythm, or repetition becomes problematic for the beginning reader. Picture clues would help only a little.

It is obvious that if a reading program were built upon one type of text, the beginning reader would have a great deal of difficulty progressing to other types of text. It is, in fact, dangerous to limit type of reading material for the early reader. Instead, an excellent teacher will choose, with help from the child, materials based on interest and reading and skill level.

Conclusions

Research in reading provides a clear directive toward public policy. A convergence of research strongly suggests that readers need lots of practice reading and writing, and they need to be taught by teachers who value student growth, who recognize achievement, and who make changes when students need instructional variations. In districts and schools where teachers are highly respected and supported with long-term staff development for learning how better to instruct, assess, and plan for student growth, learner outcomes will be strong. However, where staff development is cut or sporadic at best, where emphasis is on isolated skills and rote learning without any application to real reading or writing, and where neither student nor teacher strengths are recognized as the catalyst for learning achievement, learner outcomes will suffer (Knapp et. al., 1995). Public policy leaders would be smart to recognize the former will preserve a democratic society while the latter may destroy it because a strong public school system is at the heart of an educated electorate as well as the substance of a progressive technological economy.

References

Allington, R. (1997, May 16). Critical balances: Early instruction for lifelong reading. A paper presented at the University of Houston Institute on Research-to-Practice Connections for Early Reading Instruction, Houston, Texas.

Allington, R. (1977). If they don't read much, how they ever gonna get good? Journal of Reading, 21(1), 57-61.

Almasi, J.F. (1995). The nature of fourth graders' sociocognitive conflicts in peer-led and teacher-led discussions of literature. Reading Research Quarterly, 30(3), 314-351.

Au, K.H. (1995). Multicultural perspectives on literacy research. Journal of Reading Behavior, 21(1), 85-100.

Berliner, D.C. (1988). Implications of studies of expertise in pedagogy for teacher educators and evaluation. Paper presented at the 1988 Educational Testing Service Invitational Conference on New Directions for Teacher Assessment, New York City.

Baumann, J. (1996). Do basal readers deskill teachers? A national survey of educators' use and opinion of basals. The Elementary School Journal, 96(5), 511-526.

Duffy, G.G. (1993). Rethinking strategy instruction: Four teachers' development and their low achievers' understandings. The Elementary School Journal. 93(3), 231-247.

Duffy, G.G. & McIntyre, L.D. (1980, April). A qualitative analysis of how various primary grade teachers employ the structured learning components of the direct instruction model when teaching reading. Paper presented at the annual meeting of American Education Research Association, Boston, MA. (Eric Document Reproduction Service No.184085).

Gaskins, I., Anderson, R.C., Pressley, M., Cunicelli, E.A. & Satlow, E. (1993). Six teachers' dialogue during cognitive process instruction. The Elementary School Journal, 93(3), 227-304.

Heath, S.B. (1981). Language in the USA. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Heath, S.B. (1991). Children of promise: Literate activity in linguistically and culturally diverse classrooms. Washington DC, NEA Professional Library.

Hoffman, J. (1995). Reading instruction in first grade classrooms: Do basals control teachers? (Reading Research Report No. 43). Athens, GA: National Reading Research Center.

Knapp, M.S., Shields, P.M., & Turnbull, B.J. (1995). Academic challenge in high-poverty classrooms. Phi Delta Kappan, 76(10), 770-776.

McIntyre, L.D., & Pressley, M. (Eds.) (1996). Balanced instruction: Strategies and skills in whole language. Norwood MA: Christopher Gordon.

Pearson, P.D. (1997, May 16). Critical balances: Early instruction for lifelong reading. A paper presented at the University of Houston Institute on Research-to-Practice Connections for Early Reading Instruction, Houston, Texas.

Pressley, M., Rankin, J., & Yokoi, L. (1995). A survey of instructional practices of primary teachers nominated as effective in promoting literacy (Reading Research Report No. 41). Athens, GA: National Reading Research Center.

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